There has been much online (and real life) consternation regarding the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones that just finished airing. Particularly, many felt that the final six episodes felt rushed, and didn't conclude the sprawling plot threads weaved over the years in a very satisfying manner. It's also fair to say that a fair number of fans were quite fine with how things were wrapped-up, and don't really get what all the fuss is about.
I suppose it is the hallmark of a mega-popular program that people even care enough to be upset by something that is basically a bunch of people acting on a screen. It is a testament to the creative abilities of all involved with the production that they managed to enthrall so many for such a number of years. So, kudos to Game of Thrones, however controversially it ended its run. It made people care, and that's not something that can be said about everything available to watch on television.
What fascinates me about how we view TV show finales is how it didn't use to be this way. For much of the history of television, programs would come and ago and, no matter how popular they were, many of them would just end. No special episode to wrap-up things up, no big farewell. The show would simply be done. By the time I was growing-up, TV finales were becoming a thing, so it was always interesting for me to watch reruns of vintage programs on stations such as Nick-at-Nite, and be surprised when the final installment would be broadcast. More often than not, it was like any other episode in the show's line-up.
In trying to remember when it was that television began making a spectacle of a series' ending, one moment that stands out is the 1967 finale of The Fugitive. For four years, Richard Kimble had been on the run, wrongly convicted of killing his wife, constantly evading the law while looking for the one-armed man who'd really committed the murder. Over 78 million people tuned-in to watch Kimble finally find justice, a viewing figure record held for more than a decade ('Who Shot JR?' on Dallas usurped it, which, though it wasn't a series finale, was probably the first of what can be described as fictional event television).
We'd have to look a decade later, in 1977, for another notable final episode of a well-liked program. The Mary Tyler Moore Show didn't just fade away. It provided a culmination of character development, pathos and closure that was -- up to that point, anyway -- unique for half-hour comedy. Six years later was the conclusion of the long-running dramedy M*A*S*H, which had 125 million viewers glued to their sets. Even though it took a little while, the Mary Tyler Moore and M*A*S*H finales are what I think planted the seeds for our modern day hype for the endings of beloved television shows.
Starting in the '90s we saw more hype for final episodes. Cheers stands out as having a big deal made about its ending after eleven years, though the general response to its finale was something along the lines of 'That was nice,' and then folks swiftly moved on. Seinfeld, of course, was the biggie. It went out as the #1 show on television in 1998, and there were watch parties for its last episode. Of course, it disappointed, as so many of these final installments often do. LOST, The Sopranos, Roseanne, St. Elsewhere, Game of Thrones, Quantum Leap... they all seemed to disappoint, or cause controversy (though Quantum Leap was cancelled, so had to scramble to come up with last minute narration to cover its ending).
So what shows have concluded well? There seems to be a consensus that some programs that set-out to make a big deal of their ending succeeded in tying-up loose ends and providing nice send-offs for the characters. Shows that come to mind with this are: the aforementioned The Fugitive, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and M*A*S*H, along with Newhart (best ending ever?), Star Trek: The Next Generation, Parks and Recreation and, mostly recently, The Big Bang Theory. So, it can be done, though it probably helps if the program had been more episodic in nature and less sprawling. I'm not sure if Game of Thrones could ever really have ended to everyone's satisfaction.
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